1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer systems and more particularly to performance benchmarking of computer systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
When purchasing a computer system, a best performance for the money determination has become a difficult evaluation for most consumers. Previously, when all computer system architectures and all processor architectures were the same, processor speed was a good indicator of computer system performance. Modern computer system architectures and modern processor architectures vary significantly, and thus, processor speed is no longer an accurate indicator of computer system performance.
Benchmarks are software routines used to measure or predict a computer system's performance on specific types of tasks. Typically, benchmarks evaluate a computer system's performance on tasks like productivity, internet accesses, video encoding and image editing, gaming, and computation intensive applications. Other tasks can include integer and floating point mathematical operations, tests of two- or three-dimensional graphical functions, reading/writing/searching within disk files, and memory allocation and access.
A benchmark can either measure a computer system's actual performance on specific tasks or the benchmark can utilize computer system characteristics to predict the computer system's performance. For example, a benchmark can identify the type of processor, processor speed, cache and memory sizes, system bus characteristics, and graphics subsystem characteristics and utilize tables or other data to predict the computer system's expected performance. Benchmarks can be used to compare the performance of one computer system to another computer system, measure the effect of configuration changes and upgrades, or determine if a computer system is performing at its best.
Ideally, consumers can utilize benchmark results in making purchase decisions. Benchmarks are often published in trade magazines or available from computer system manufacturers or component suppliers. However, different benchmark routines in which performance scores are calculated and scaled differently provide significantly different performance results. For example, often computer system manufacturers provide a proprietary benchmark result which can be used to compare computer systems by that manufacturer, but not different manufacturers. In addition, often newer or generic computer systems do not have benchmark results available. Some processor manufacturers provide benchmarks for particular processors, however, computer system characteristics such as bus speed and the graphics subsystems can cause the benchmark results to vary significantly.
Consumers need access to objective independent benchmark results on which to accurately compare a variety of computer systems, for example, prior to making purchasing decisions.